How To Beat Aggressive Poker Players

Dealing with a highly aggressive poker player on your left is never an easy thing to handle. In fact it just plain sucks no matter how you cut it. The is a lot of advanced poker theory these days like The Upswing Poker Lab for example which talk about how to balance your ranges and play GTO in a spot like this. Learning to beat aggressive players can mean a dramatic shift in how you approach the game. When at lower stakes winning play just meant finding the right places to shove your chips around, when.

1. How To Beat Aggressive Poker Players Test
2. How To Be An Aggressive Poker Player
3. How To Beat Aggressive Poker Players Game

Aggressive players can be a lot of things. They could donate
tons of money or they can dominate your tables. Of course, you
would much rather face those players who are going wild with no
sense of direction than those who actually have a clue as to what they
are doing. This article is going to focus on both ends of the
aggressive spectrum, from winning to losing players. Formulating
a winning strategy against an aggressive style of play isn’t as
cut and dry as it might seem. There are always unique types of
players even within one set style of play, and you need to be
able to adjust accordingly.

Aggressive poker wasn’t only the most successful way to
play. In fact, it’s one of the most notable creations of the
modern age of poker. Prior to the mid-2000s when the trend
started to gain traction, the most successful poker players were
relatively tight and knew how to capitalize on big hands while
losing the least with their weak hands. If you applied the same
very strong strategies of those days to today, you might be able
to turn a profit, but you won’t be making nearly as much as
those who are more aggressive.

The reason that aggressive play works is because it puts
other players on the defensive. This can mean that others are
intimidated and don’t know how to react to aggression or it can
simply mean that they are confused by the play itself.
Non-showdown pots are the time where aggressive play is really
focal. Players make the most money from being able to pick up
small pot after small pot without much opposition. If you can
effectively fight off these repeated attempts to win the “easy
money,” you’ll already be one step ahead of the game. You
shouldn’t be playing for the sake of simply catching an
aggressive player in the act though, as this is only a recipe
for disaster.

Beating Losing Players

You would have a tough time finding any poker player who
doesn’t like sitting in a game with action junkies who play
every hand. Whether you have a losing player who also loves
action or a winning player who likes money, no one wants to see
a reckless player leave their game. In fact, the players who get
upset by reckless plays are usually some of the biggest passive
losers around. They think that wild play is somehow ruining
their chances of success, when in reality they should only be
multiplying their likelihood of walking away a big winner. The
point is that if you are scared or do not like crazy aggressive
players, poker isn’t the game for you.

The pre-flop play for beating losing aggressive players is
actually quite simple. You should be looking to get in as many
pots as possible with the player(s) in question. Some poker
strategy will say that you shouldn’t ever target one particular
opponent, but this advice isn’t applicable here. When someone
says that you shouldn’t “go after” one player at the table, they
usually mean in the sense of revenge or payback. When you are
just looking to capitalize on someone’s bad play, however, it
makes perfect sense to chase after the easiest money available.

Normally folding a hand like A7 suited would make sense
against a raise pre-flop, but this is the type of hand that
could pay off big time against a maniacal player. The important
thing is that you are entering pots at the lowest price
possible. If you are regularly calling off huge bets in the hope
of flopping hard, you will still be losing money.

The post-flop strategy against these players is almost as
straightforward. You should very rarely be making bluffs or any
other type of move that requires your opponent folding a good
portion of the time since they tend to be calling stations.
Instead, value bet hard when you connect and give up without a
fight when you miss. Value betting and folding are the two most
primary skills that you could put into play against these
players. Anything else, for the most part, is just unnecessary.

Beating Winning Players

Learning how to profit against winning aggressive players is
many times more difficult than it is against losing players, and
for some very obvious reasons. First, you are going to have to
think when you are playing these people as they are often times
going to be the toughest opponents in your game. You won’t be
able to apply a very simplistic strategy as this will be ripped
apart in no time at all. You need to have confidence that you
know what you are doing and you need to be willing to take some
risks. If all of this isn’t in play, you are going to struggle
against any strong opponents who tend to play aggressively.

Pre-flop strategy against winning aggressive players calls
for you to mix it up from time to time. If you are playing ABC
poker, there isn’t much that a thinking player won’t be able to
pick off. If you are tossing in some 3-bet bluffs and steals,
however, you are going to balance your ranges much more
effectively. As backward as it might seem, you need to be OK
with losing some in order to win more.

Hand selection is going
to be up to you. You can tighten up to take advantage of their
widened ranges, or you too can be more loose and outplay your
opponent post-flop. How you play pre-flop should largely depend
on how confident you are in your post-flop play.

Post-flop strategy is the trickiest element in this entire
equation. Not only will you have a tough time putting the other
players on a hand, but you’ll also need to work towards being
as deceptive as possible. You don’t want to be implementing a
strategy where your hand is always somewhat obvious. This will
disable you from being able to value bet or bluff, rendering
your strategy all but useless.

There’s no easy way to explain
exactly how this strategy would look. While beating bad
aggressive players is a walk in the park, beating good
aggressive players is the polar opposite. The best advice
against these opponents is to practice, experiment, and be
prepared to fail. You’ll find that you are more prone to
variance against these winning aggressive players, but it doesn’t mean that they can’t be beaten over the long run. They are
just like you and are in the game to make money, but someone has
to be a loser. If you are more creative and are willing to take
some risks, you are more than capable of coming out on top.

• »News
• »Tight-Aggressive Poker: How to Beat It

There are so many different styles of play to adopt at the poker tables. It is what makes this game so special. Tight-aggressive (TAG) and loose-aggressive (LAG) styles are the most popular and today we will delve into a tight-aggressive style.

What is a Tight-Aggressive Style?

How To Beat Aggressive Poker Players Test

Tight-aggressive is a term for a style of play in all forms of poker. Players adopting a TAG style will play fewer hands (that is the tight part) but play them aggressively. This does not mean they are always angry, more they bet and raise more than they call or fold.

TAG players can be difficult to beat simply because they play hands at the more premium end of the scale. The best tight-aggressive players occasionally mix their play up by throwing a curveball in there, but they play stronger hands for the most part.

It is rare to find a TAG player raising and three-betting with junk hands, it is not in their nature. In a nutshell, tight-aggressive players play strong hands strongly.

Does a TAG Style Work?

Yes, in a word, the tight-aggressive style does work, even in today’s game where play tends to be quite loose, particularly in the online poker world. This is the style of play you want to adopt if you are new to poker. Why? Because it makes your decision making much simpler before and after the flop. Easier decisions mean less mistake. Fewer mistakes mean you are more likely to win, or at least not lose as much.

The hands a TAG plays have good expected value because of their preflop strength. Looser players rely on implied value because they can win pots with disguised hands; more on that in another article.

Dan Harrington, winner of the 1995 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event and author of the excellent Harrington On Hold’emstrategy books, is perhaps the most famous tight-aggressive player. He promotes a TAG style in poker tournaments and it is a strategy that has served him well.

What Are the Negatives of a TAG Style?

You have to reverse engineer the TAG style of play to find its weaknesses. Think of its major strength: you are only playing premium holdings. Now think how often you are dealt pocket pairs ten or higher, or ace-king. It is not very often. These players can often find themselves “card dead” for long periods of time while they sit and wait from a strong hand.

Likewise, TAG players can find it difficult to get paid off with their strong hands because everyone knows they are playing a narrow range. For example, a tight-aggressive player raises from under the gun and you call in the big blind. The flop comes down K-7-5, you check, villain bets, what do you do? That king has likely smacked him straight in the face. He could have a set of kings, have paired the king with his ace-king, or even have aces.

Players like this tend to win lots of small pots rather than large pots.

How to Beat a Tight-Aggressive Player

The first thing to realize when you take on a TAG player is you have plenty of implied value. They are playing strong hands and will like to hold onto them. Use this to your advantage.

Start by playing more speculative hands, such as low pairs, suited connectors and one-gap connectors. These have huge implied value against a typical TAG. Using our previous example, imagine a TAG opens under the gun and you call in the big blind. The flop comes down K-7-5 like before. If you made the call with pocket threes, pocket sevens or a hand such as 7-5 then you are in business. Our tight-aggressive friend will think he is still strong here but you have him crushed, mostly.

How To Be An Aggressive Poker Player

In this scenario, it would be best to check and let villain continue building a pot for us. Do not be tempted to raise the flop with a hand as strong as a set because a good TAG can smell danger from a couple of kilometres away.

This leads us to setting traps, something that is highly effective. Allow the TAG to think their hand is best when you are super strong before snagging them in your trap on later streets when they are too invested in the pot to fold.

It is also worth bluffing at boards that would not help a tight-aggressive player. Flops with all low cards are perfect for this, even check-raising works well. Weaker TAGs like to look for monsters under the bed and will fold all but nut hands when they face aggression.

How To Beat Aggressive Poker Players Game

Another perfectly viable strategy is to play your draws aggressively. TAGs would never dream of semi-bluffing with an open-ended straight draw or flush draw.

Not paying them off is also a great idea. Chips not lost are as good as chips won, especially in tournaments. Some tight-aggressive players employ a pump and dump strategy. That is fire a continuation-bet and give up if they face any resistance. Muck your hand faster than lightning if a TAG is firing shots on multiple streets as they probably have the goods.

Like anything in poker, it reaps dividends if you learn to adapt to different situations. Often, the opposite is best. Play looser if facing a tight player, and play tighter if playing a loose player. Above all, have fun! Good luck at the tables.